EVER since her marriage to Prince William the Duchess of Cambridge has had a female bodyguard by her side, while the rest of the Royal Family are protected by men.

Now I learn that this arrangement was at the specific suggestion of her father-in-law Prince Charles. “From the start, when Kate became engaged, it was Charles who made the women-only stipulation, saying he didn’t want her compromised in any way,” says a former member of S014, the Scotland Yard unit responsible for royal protection.

In using the term “compromised” Charles may have had in mind his late wife Diana, who became close to her bodyguard Barry Mannakee. She was later to claim that he was murdered for having an affair with her.

On a video filmed later by her former voice coach, Diana confessed her love for the married detective and claimed that he was “bumped off” by the security services as a result. Mannakee was removed from his duties on the insistence of Charles. Eight months later he died in a motorcycle accident.

Of their relationship the Princess said: “I was only happy when he was around. I should never have played with fi re and I got burnt.” So to avoid such pitfalls Kate has women guarding her. Her main protection officer is Emma Probert, who was assigned to her after her engagement to William in 2010.

The year before Sgt Probert, 43, had suffered personal tragedy when her husband died in a skiing accident. Emma found love again with Inspector Colin Childs, part of the team guarding the Queen. After divorcing his wife, Colin married Emma and the couple now have a baby.

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Kate is said to be particularly fond of Emma, who used to be an air hostess (like Carole Middleton). When Sgt Probert has time off her place is taken by petite blonde Karen Llewellyn, who like Emma carries a Glock pistol at all times. There is also another female guard who looks after Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

The choice of policewomen does not surprise Ken Wharfe, Diana’s former bodyguard, who says: “I’ve heard that Prince Charles is more involved in who is being appointed. And if he asks for more women he will get more women.

“The trouble with Diana was she got on better with men. She did have a woman once but she didn’t last long. You have to have a good chemistry with the person you’re looking after.”

It was four months ago that Sam Faiers blushed with delight as she told me about her new boyfriend. Now the TV star is pregnant and there’s chatter that an engagement to property developer Paul Day is imminent.

“I’m really looking forward to having a family and although we talk about kids more than we do about marriage, as a couple we want the whole package,” says the star of that seminal sociological study The Only Way Is Essex.

The Brentwood-born babe, 24, credits Paul with helping her to cut down on her drinking, which has led to an improvement in her Crohn’s disease. The debilitating bowel condition was first diagnosed while she was in the Celebrity Big Brother house and she was twice admitted to hospital.

BAREMEDIA

Sam Faiers with her new boyfriend in Dubai

Of Paul, whom she met shortly after breaking up with her Towie co-star Joey Essex, she beams: “He’s so lovely. He researches the internet for information to help my illness and wants to do anything to make me better.”

IT HAS been eight years since she divorced Chris Tarrant after discovering the amorous angler had been casting his fishing rod elsewhere but his ex-wife Ingrid says she certainly doesn’t miss him.

“I have no reason to speak to Chris,” she told me at a Belgravia party for Ingrid Seward’s book The Queen’s Speech. “I saw him at my daughter’s wedding and didn’t recognise him. He was a stranger. As for remarriage? No! I like my independence now. My mother said the only thing a man can give you is a child.”

Ingrid’s revenge for Chris’s infidelity was a £12million settlement and the wounding riposte that the priapic presenter was a “clumsy lover” who often came to bed smelling of fish from his angling trips.

Indeed the Norwegian-born blonde, 60, doesn’t miss the rumpy-pumpy, stating firmly: “I’m very happy being celibate, if you don’t have sex, after a while you stop missing it.”

While at St Andrews University Prince William was referred to in conversations among his chums as Steve to mask his identity, while some of Kate’s friends still call her by her school nickname Squeak. And Harry styles himself Spike when he wants to keep a low profile.

Now I learn that among their staff William is referred to as FC (Father Cambridge); Kate is MC (Mother Cambridge); Prince George is PC1, and Princess Charlotte is PC2. In private Wills calls Kate Poppet. “No one has been closer to my family than you have.”

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That’s what Paul Burrell’s website says the Queen once told him. I wonder what HM makes of the former butler’s ongoing predilection for dispensing royal tidbits. His latest nugget is about whether the Queen ever has any money in her purse.

“Only for the church collection box on Sundays,” states Burrell. “She has a £5 note that is ironed into little squares so that it’s finished up with one square with her face on it.” What’s the secret of the long, steady marriage of the Queen and Prince Philip that’s helped her to become Britain’s longest-serving sovereign?

We already know the couple have separate bedroom suites at Buckingham Palace but, whispers a royal flunky, “the secret is that the adjoining door has a hefty bolt. On the Queen’s side.”

FAREWELL Lord Montagu, whose funeral was held at Beaulieu on Thursday. The last time I saw him was at Rupert Everett’s play The Judas Kiss, about Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment for gross indecency – a subject which had particular resonance for Edward Montagu.

In 1954, in a trial almost as celebrated as Wilde’s, the aristocrat was jailed for a year for homosexual offences but the outcome was a huge shift in public attitudes and an eventual change in the law (1967 in England, with various extensions later) to legalise sex between consenting gay adults.

“I’m probably the only person in the audience who knows what it was like to get sent to prison for something that was then seen as a crime,” he told me after the show. The bohemian Montagu was one of three men convicted of “conspiracy to incite male persons to commit serious offences” after a party at his beach house in the New Forest.

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Montagu’s trial led ultimately to the establishment of a more tolerant society

It was the first time this charge had been used since Wilde’s trial in 1895. “People can’t understand it now, they can’t imagine the furtiveness,” said Montagu, who went on to marry twice.

“My trial was horrific. I’m slightly proud that the law was changed to the benefit of so many people.”

Indeed Montagu’s trial led ultimately to the establishment of a more tolerant society but like Wilde he was a man both ahead of his time and trapped by it.